In Brazil, around 1.000 medicines are recalled every year in Brazil, making it essential for logistical management and strict control of batches, expiration date and even the patients who used a certain product in order to guarantee the identification of people who have been exposed to inappropriate inputs.
Hospital logistics has emerged as a solution for a world scenario of medication errors, deviations and fraud. In Brazil, there are still few quantitative studies on the subject, however, some international studies point to alarming numbers, where an average of 39% of medication errors occur in the medication prescription process, 11% in the dispensing process and up to 38% in the time of medication administration. In Brazil, around 1.000 drugs are recalled every year in Brazil, making it essential for logistics management and strict control of batches, expiry date and even the patients who used a given product in order to ensure the identification of people who were exposed to inappropriate inputs.
In addition to helping to avoid damage to the health of patients, logistics is a great ally of the financial health of institutions, since the strict control of purchase, storage and use of tracking prevents an average of 30% of wasting inventory. In the USA, an average annual cost of US$76,6 billion is estimated with morbidity and mortality linked to medication errors, in addition to a cost of approximately US$4.700 per preventable adverse drug event.
Another example comes from an operation in Pará, which proves a 99% reduction in medical material and medication losses, and presents financial and human gains with the reduction in medication distribution time (50% less), in monthly consumption (52% ) and in stock (17%).
Automation also plays an important role in this process, performing the separation of medications and generating a significant increase in productivity by facilitating tasks, automatically distributing activities among operators, and rigorous control of all stages, so that each action is carried out. in the shortest time and with the highest possible quality. The results configure, consequently, the reduction of the deadline for answering refueling requests and greater assistance to the patient.
Thus, in view of the celebrations for the world health day, one must do justice to the importance of the hospital logistics process.
Source: Health Business
By Domingos Gonçalves de Oliveira Fonseca
